With abortion bans proliferating in states across the country after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, elected officials are rallying to enshrine access to the procedure in Massachusetts. A bill intended to shield both those seeking and providing abortions in Massachusetts is currently working its way through the Democrat-controlled legislature, and is expected to hit Republican Governor Charlie Baker’s desk this month. In 2020, the legislature passed the abortion access expanding Roe Act over a veto from Baker. Democratic Berkshire District Attorney Andrea Harrington sat down with WAMC to talk about the high court’s decision, and how she and other self-identified progressive prosecutors are responding.
HARRINGTON: First of all, I want people in Berkshire County to know that abortion is legal in Massachusetts. And that might seem like something that doesn't need to be said, but in my experience of trying to serve the most vulnerable people here in our community, that when people see what's happening on TV, they think, you know, that's what's happening here in their own community. And the trust between the vulnerable populations that we are really working to try to empower and protect is already so frayed and so damaged. And you see that kind of happening like with the immigrant community with ICE- When you see these kinds of things happening in other states, people, the fact that you know, we're a sanctuary city, this is a sanctuary state, doesn't necessarily make people feel safer to come to law enforcement for help. So I think it's really important for us to get the word out to women who are in unsafe situations, who are immigrants, you know, people that maybe would be fearful of law enforcement, to know abortion is legal. My office would never prosecute somebody for their personal healthcare decision. So that's one thing that I want to be communicating to people first and foremost, but the other is in helping people to kind of understand that the overturning of Roe v. Wade is going to open up a whole new way of criminalizing women across the country and a whole new kind of thread of mass incarceration that myself and many other people really have been working to combat. And I think that, you know, as people start to understand the ramifications of this decision, it's really important for them to know that they have a local prosecutor who is standing against this kind of injustice that we're seeing happening across the country.
WAMC: You're plugged into a network of progressive DAs. Is there a conversation in those circles about how to react to these changing legal standards for abortion across the country?
I came out against criminalizing abortion in October of 2020. We recognized at that point in time when we saw the state legislatures making anti-abortion laws that this was going to be a big battle. And there was an amicus brief in the Dobbs case that I signed on to that was, you know, a number of prosecutors from across the country signed on to pointing out how this overturning of a fundamental right was going to really negatively impact public safety. We want to be using our resources to address violent crime, and peeling away those resources to criminalize people's personal healthcare decisions is so counterproductive. And, you know, we see that with our domestic violence cases, with our sexual assault cases, with our human trafficking cases- Like, this decision is going to prevent women from getting the help that they need, first of all, but also, you know, it's creating a whole police state around how women and their friends and their families and their medical providers are trying to help women access healthcare. So I've been part of a group that has been working on this for the past two years.
This strikes me as a complicated intersection for prosecutors in your position who identify as progressives. Obviously, DAs in other states who might agree with you on many political issues might find themselves in a position where they are now legally required to uphold restrictions on abortion. If you were in a different state, what kind of position would you be in? Are you hearing from DAs in other states who find themselves despite being, again, self-identified progressives, being put in a position where they might have to prosecute abortion?
Yes. So for prosecutors who are in communities where they have pledged not to enforce criminalizing healthcare decisions, where they're in states where they have these laws, they're in a difficult position. And we kind of saw this with Aramis Ayala in Orlando when she took a pledge not to seek the death penalty. And we've seen this in other instances too, for prosecutors that pledge not to prosecute particular crimes when there's a move from, you know, a governor or an attorney general to take away prosecutorial discretion in making those kinds of decisions. And I think it highlights, for communities, how important it is to have local elected prosecutors who share the values of that community, who are going to stand against this kind of injustice. And here, you know, in Massachusetts, we have the Roe Act, which codifies the rights protected in Roe vs. Wade. Right after the decision came out, Governor Baker issued an order that we would not cooperate with extradition agreements or cooperate with investigations that were launched by other states in Massachusetts. We have those things in Massachusetts, those are very important, and I want to explain to people why that's so important. So here, if there's a warrant for somebody's arrest from another state, they let into that into a nationwide system. So we routinely pick up people on arrest warrants from other states here in Massachusetts, and my office will- You know, we're very discerning in which warrants we honor and who we helped to extradite. It used to be that it was just done as a matter of course, but now we take a look at those and make sure that they're fair and that it’s something we want to be participating in. But, you know, it's important for people to understand that local prosecutors are going to be a part of a system of criminalizing women's healthcare choices. And I think this is a good example for the community as to why it is so important for your local prosecutor to share your values and the values of the community, because it's not just about, you know, who makes the laws, but in this kind of case, it's about who enforces them and how we enforce them. And also, from my position, we have incredibly sophisticated resources that we use to investigate violent crime, serious crime, sophisticated drug operations, and the idea of these kinds of tools being used against women seeking healthcare in other states is really terrifying. So that's the landscape, that's what we're in. And here in Massachusetts, it's an opportunity for our state to lead and we need to be doing that at every level. We need to be doing that at the local level, the state level, because we're going to be a sanctuary, and we're going to be a light for the rest of the country and to hopefully, you know, get out of what's going to be, lead during a very dark time.
While abortion remains legal in Massachusetts, there are still many hurdles that people have to go through to get access to those abortions. As states like Massachusetts talk about potentially taking in folks from other states looking for abortions, are there things here in Berkshire County that elected officials could do better to expand access to abortion?
You know, I think, as we're having this conversation, we need to be honest with how well we're serving the women of Berkshire County, who certainly are, in many ways, you know, we fall at a disadvantage, because we're a rural community, and we're under resourced. And it is difficult for women to get access to basic healthcare, and that's unacceptable here in our community. And there was some discussion in the legislature of investing funds into providing access to abortion for people here in Berkshire County. And we need to see courageous leadership on these issues in terms of expanding access. And I see my role as supporting that, but also, you know, letting women know that abortion is legal, and you will not be prosecuted for seeking healthcare. And, you know, another point that I want to make too, in terms of the public safety aspect, is that that women who are pregnant or who have recently given birth are at higher risk for being murdered. Murder is the number one mortality issue for pregnant women. So, you know, this issue of not allowing women to have abortions and make these kinds of healthcare decisions affects their safety in so many different ways, and this decision will really just have such a negative impact on women everywhere. So I think it's just really important that people understand the ramifications that we're looking at.
